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THE LIGHT BEARERS 

AND OTHER 
LECTURES 




PRICE 50 CENTS 



BY 

ALFRED H. TERRY 






Copyright 1918 
By Alfred H. Terry 



HAYWORTH PUBLISHING HOUSE, WASHINGTON. D C. 

©CI. A 495953 

MAY -. 




ALFRED H. TERRY 






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X 



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CONTENTS 



Page 

Nuggets of Wisdom 5 

The Light Bearers 9 

The Mission of Spiritualism 21 

Influences Affecting the Life of Man 40 

Life After Death 53 

The Healing Power 63 

Man^ the Magician 74 

The Higher Life 87 



NUGGETS OF WISDOM. 

"Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall 
find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For 
every one that asketh receiveth and he that seek- 
eth findest, and to him that knocketh it shall be 
opened.' , 

Jesus. 

"But the manifestation of the spirit is given to 
every man to profit withal. For to one is given, 
by the spirit, the word of wisdom, to another the 
word of knowledge, by the same spirit. To an- 
other faith by the same spirit, to another gifts 
of healing, by the same spirit. To another the 
working of miracles, to another prophecy, to an- 
other discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds 
of tongues, to another the interpretation of 
tongues." 

Paul. 

"God is love; and he that dwelleth in love 
dwelleth in God, and God in him. — There is no 
fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. 
He that f eareth is not made perfect in love/' 

John. 

"The truth is noble and sweet, the truth can 
deliver you from evil. There is no savior in the 
world except the truth." 

Buddha. 



[5] 



"I hold that the term evil comprises everything 
that destroys and corrupts, and the term good, 
everything that preserves and benefits/' 

Socrates. 

"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, 
and it will ever bubble up, if thou will ever dig." 

Marcus Aurelius. 

"Wisdom is right understanding, a faculty of 
discerning good from evil, what is to be chosen 
and what rejected; a judgment grounded upon 
the value of things, and not the opinion of them; 
an equality of force and a strength of resolution." 

Seneca. 

"Religions are many; reason is one; we are all 
brothers/' 

Chinese Proverb. 

"An enlightened mind is like heaven, a dark- 
ened one like hell. The spiritual essence goes 
everywhere. Mind is infinite/' 

Chinese Proverb. 

"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the 
good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." 

Shakespeare. 

"We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, 
which makes us organs of its activity and re- 
ceivers of its truth." 

Emerson. 



[«3 



"The great silent men! Looking round on the 
noisy inanity of the world, words with little 
meaning, actions with little worth, one loves to 
reflect on the great empire of silence. The noble 
silent men, each in his own department, silently 
thinking, silently working, they are the salt of 
the earth." 

Carlyle. 

"Nearly all my successes in life are founded on 
previous failures." 

Disraeli. 

"Nothing but truth and justice can ever really 
satisfy our deepest human instincts." 

W. J. Colville. 

"Knowledge holdeth by the hilt and heweth out 
a road to conquest. Ignorance graspeth the blade 
and is wounded by its own sword." 

Martin Tupper. 

"Let no enemy from without be feared, conquer 
thine own self, and the whole world is con- 
quered." 

(Author unknown.) 

"It is a grand thing to be owner of yourself." 

Ingersoll. 

"The so-called infidel is often a man of great 
gentleness of spirit, and his disbelief is not in 
God, but in some little man's definition of God, 
a distinction the little man, being without humor, 
can never see." 

Elbert Hubbard. 

m 



"If we live long enough to see the results of 
our actions it may be those who call themselves 
good would be filled with a wild remorse and those 
whom the world calls evil stirred with a noble joy. 
Each little thing we do passes into the great ma- 
chine of life, which may grind our virtues to pow- 
der and make them worthless or transform our 
sins into elements of a new civilization more mar- 
velous and more splendid than any that have gone 
before/' 

Oscar Wilde. 

" 'In spite of air has been my motto since the 
age of nine, and I have been faithful to it. I have 
fought with time, and have been stronger than 
time. I have striven with illness and conquered 
it. I have battled with death and repulsed it — 
requesting it to come back later. This is the secret 
of my youth/' 

Sara Bemhart. 

"In Spiritualism is to be found an expression 
of the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. It is truly 
democratic, given to saint and sinner alike both 
here in this life, and after death an opportunity 
for redemption/' 

Ammyeetis. 



[8] 



THE LIGHT BEARERS. 

That which we recognize as civiliza- 
tion, is the result of centuries of culture 
and applied knowledge. The pillars that 
support this great structure are Science, 
Religion, Art and Philosophy. To be- 
live that these great institutions of knowl- 
edge were given to man direct as a free 
gift, is to err greatly. It is true that life 
and the faculties for obtaining knowledge 
are given to man, but all the marvelous 
possibilities of the development of these 
innate principles depend upon thought and 
effort of the individual. One of the 
greatest errors this world labors under is 
the idea that anything of real value is 
free. There is a price set upon all things 
from the highest to the lowest, and the 
higher the goal man aims to reach, the 
greater the price he must pay. Even 
knowledge which is appreciated only by 
the few, has never been a free gift, but 
quite the reverse, it is in fact of all things 
that which man pays most dearly for. Ex- 
perience is the only coin which can ob- 

[*] 



tain knowledge, and then only as it is 
rightly used does it develop into true wis- 
dom. Knowledge has ever been the re- 
ward of effort, suffering and struggle. 

Everything, no matter how great and 
how wonderful may be its proportions, if 
traced to its source we find originated 
within the mind of one individual. We 
find that the various branches of 
Religion, Science, Art and Philosophy 
were each founded upon the ex- 
periences of one person, who expressed 
and promoted it. These great souls 
were the Light Bearers to humanity that 
the way might be opened up, and reveal- 
ed by which and through which all man- 
kind would sometime pass. It is indeed 
encouraging to realize that there always 
have been in all countries, and in all ages, 
a few upon whose prophetic vision the 
possibilities qi life rose, and they were in- 
spired into action which has ultimately 
developed into the splendor of our mod- 
ern civilization. 

In the religious sphere of life there came 
Buddha, Jesus, Mohamet and other true 

[10] 



Christs, all Light Bearers, all Saviors in 
the sense that they gave unto man a sav- 
ing condition. The lamp that man reads 
his book by does not read for him, but 
supplies him with light, which is a con- 
dition that enables him to read for him- 
self. So Jesus and all the other great 
teachers supply a saving condition which 
is knowledge, but only as each man ac- 
cepts it, and applies it to his own life, is 
it a positive good. For even salvation is 
not free, but must be worked out by each 
individual for himself. 

In Art there was Raphael, Michael An- 
gelo, Titan and Rembrandt, all founders of 
art schools, all Light Bearers in the realm 
of art, and upon whose wonderful paint- 
ings man gazes today with wonder and 
admiration. Then there were Beethoven, 
Chopin and Mozart in the music world. 
While in science we have Darwin, 
Spencer, Lambroso, Camille Flammarion, 
and Lodge. Philosophy is best repre- 
sented by Socrates, Seneca, and Epecte- 
tis. Now all these men, and many besides 
too numerous to mention, were the Light 



Bearers, and the truths they gave unto 
the world are the foundation of our own 
knowledge today. How clearly this re- 
veals the power of the individual, what 
wonderful possibilities are his, what mar- 
velous gems of eternal grandeur lie within 
his consciousness, needing only the polish- 
ing of experience to bring them forth as 
radiant emblems of knowledge to adorn 
the world's crown of clustered truths. 
It is this God within man, whose 
mighty power and beauty reveals it- 
self in the paintings of a Michael 
Angelo, the melodies of a Beethoven, the 
wisdom of a Socrates and the love of a 
Jesus, that lets the world see that God is 
here, the light of the world is here, not 
as something that shines from afar, like 
the light of a distant star ; but deep in the 
heart of man is God's love, and His light 
shines in the consciousness of his awaken- 
ing soul. 

The Light Bearer gives light always. 
He does not, like the miser with his gold, 
save it to become rich for the mere pleas- 
ure of counting his coin, but enriches him- 

[12] 



self with knowledge that he may give it 
out to shine as a beacon unto man. Sup- 
pose the great souls of all ages had kept 
their knowledge to themselves ; would not 
man today be much the poorer in wis- 
dom and in truth? 

Every man has something within him, 
which, when developed and brought into 
expression can benefit the world; or, in 
other words, every man can be a Light 
Bearer if he but wills. Some have the 
idea that all great souls lived in the past, 
and that the world today is barren of any 
who equal those exalted personalities. 
They have put such a halo around the 
past, that the present appears dull in com- 
parison. If, however, they could be trans- 
planted back into the past, they would 
find that the same sun illuminated those 
days that lights our world today; the 
same stars and moon by night; the same 
spring, summer, fall and winter; the 
same men and women in positions similar, 
and thinking the same thoughts that oc- 
cupy our minds today. Human nature 
has not changed in the last two thousand 

[13] 



years. Men hate and love as they did 
centuries ago; are selfish and ambitious 
or self-forgetting and noble as they were 
in times past. The same great miracles 
are going on today that happened two 
thousand years ago, but man is so psycho- 
logized by the past that he is living more 
in it than in the present and thereby many 
times his view escapes the miracles of to- 
day. 

In this grand and glorious present lurks 
all that has been, and all that ever will be, 
and it is for man to appropriate to him- 
self the possibilities of the present that he 
may be what others before him have been, 
a Light Bearer; that he may scale the 
heights to knowledge and to truth, and 
partake of divine wisdom. It is only as 
man shakes from his eyes the dust of ig- 
norance and superstition realizing himself 
as a spiritual being, blest with mighty pos- 
sibilities and goes to work to develop these 
innate abilities, that he truly becomes 
himself. 

Light Bearers of the present day, and 
there are many of them, are holding aloft 

[14] 



the lamp of truth that its glorious rays 
may illuminate the darkness of error here 
on earth. The various creeds and dogmas 
are like great trees whose spreading 
branches hide from the earth the warm 
creative light of the sun, holding man in 
the darkness of their shadow; shadows in 
which superstition, ignorance and charla- 
tanism are indeed the trinity under whose 
sway the people are ruled. 

Science has marched on conquering 
new fields of knowledge and in the realms 
of mechanics wonderful things have been 
done; and yet in religion, as it is express- 
ed in theology, things are as they were in 
the past. There has been no new revela- 
tion or new inspiration, or advancement 
on past revelations. All the church has 
to offer man is the recitation of things that 
happened ages ago and which it says are 
quite impossible to occur today. The 
Light Bearers are evidently not in the 
church or if perchance they are there have 
not the strength of purpose to let their 
light shine for fear perhaps of losing their 
position, so content themselves with giv- 

[15] 



ing put over and over again the same old 
story, which may have had great power 
and influence over the minds of our 
grand-parents, but which is certainly los- 
ing its sway over the minds of the present 
generation. We hear so much talk of 
why there are so many empty seats in the 
churches; the reason is very plain. The 
church of today has nothing to give the 
thinking man, it does not appeal to him; 
for he is progressive and the doctrine of 
the church is not. The Light Bearers of 
religious truth are today, as in the past, 
outside the church. Jesus, himself the 
great Light Bearer, had no church or tem- 
ple and was indeed outside the church; 
and so was the case with Buddha, he had 
no church, but presented his glorious 
teachings as Jesus did in the field and city 
streets, anywhere, in fact, where he could 
command the attention of the people. And 
so today we find that the religion of prog- 
ress, of unfoldment of enlightenment is 
not to be found within the church but as 
oT old outside its ranks. Light is stream- 
ing today from many minds, giving not a 

[16] 



stone, but the bread of spiritual life; giv- 
ing inspired living truths, not the repeti- 
tion of words, which many times spell 
error instead of truth. 

Let Theosophy, New Thought, Chris- 
tian Science and Spiritualism all march on- 
ward. Each one is a herald of a great 
fact, each one has its work, to illuminate, 
educate and develop the consciousness of 
man, to prepare him to fulfill his glorious 
destiny. Let us be friends with all these 
great bodies, realizing each has its own 
place to fill, its own particular class to 
reach and a bond of divine union and fel- 
lowship will encompass us all under one 
yoke, and that spiritual truth; with one 
purpose, that the salvation of the world; 
with one God and that God Love, not 
only spoken on the lips, but felt in the 
heart, not only believed in as a mental 
aspiration, but lived as an actual fact here 
and now in the present life. 



[17] 



TESTIMONY OF GREAT MEN. 

"We ourselves are not limited to the few years 
that we live on this earth, we shall go on without 
it, we shall certainly survive. Why do I say that? 
I say it on definite scientific ground. I say it be- 
cause I know that certain friends of mine still 
exist, because I have talked to them. Communi- 
cation is possible. One must obey the laws, find 
out the conditions. I do not say it is easy, but it 
is possible, and I have conversed with them as I 
could converse with any one through a telephone/' 

Sir Oliver Lodge. 

"My position therefore is, that the phenomena 
of Spiritualism, in their entirety, do not require 
further confirmation. They are proven quite as 
well as any facts are proven in other sciences." 

Alfred R. Wallace. 

"It will be hereafter proved that the human 
soul, even in this life, is in constant communica- 
tion with the spirit world, and that these are sus- 
ceptible of mutual impressions; but ordinarily 
these impressions are unperceived." 

Immanuel Kant. 

"There are times when the unknown reveals it- 
self to the spirit of men in visions. Such visions 
have occasionally the power to effect a transfigura- 
tion, converting a poor camel-driver into a Ma- 
homet ; a peasant girl tending her goats into a Joan 



[19] 



of Arc. * * * Those that depart still remain 
near us — they are in a world of light but they as 
tender witnesses hover about our world of dark- 
ness. Though invisible to some, they are not ab- 
sent. Sweet is their presence, holy is their con- 
verse with us." — From "Toilers of the Sea/' by 
Victor Hugo. 

"So many proven facts have been first discov- 
ered by occult science, that some day we shall 
have professors of occult science, as we already 
have professors of chemistry and astronomy." 

Honore De Balzac. 

"Do not sneer at the humble beginnings, the 
heaving table or the flying tambourine, however 
such phenomena may have been abused or simu- 
lated, but remember that a falling apple taught us 
gravity, a boiling kettle brought us the steam en- 
gine, and a twitching leg of a frog opened up the 
train of thought and experiment which gave us 
electricity. So the lowly manifestations of Hydes- 
ville have ripened into results which have engaged 
the finest group of intellects in this country dur- 
ing the last twenty years, and which are destined, 
in my opinion to bring about far the greatest de- 
velopment of human experience which the world 
has ever seen." 

A. Conan Doyle. 



[20] 



THE MISSION OF SPIRITUALISM. 

Spiritualism, with its divine revela- 
tions, is growing more into the limelight 
of the world's interest; its consoling reli- 
gion, enlightening philosophy and con- 
vincing phenomena are reaching all peo- 
ple in various parts of the world and 
bringing them into a closer atonement 
with God. Spiritualism has entered the 
realms of religion, science, art and the 
most acceptable literature of the day. The 
great minds, leading thinkers, have been 
touched, aroused and convinced of the 
sublime reality of its teachings. No doubt 
one of the main reasons for the great prog- 
ress of spiritualism is that the vital ques- 
tion "If a man die shall he live again?" is 
more fully and satisfactorily answered 
with evidence which must convince every 
honest investigator. Another fact which 
impresses the mind of the liberal thinker, 
who investigates spiritualism, is its great 
scope, its broadness, it has no set limits, 
but is as limitless in its expression of wis- 
dom as truth is infinite. Here at last is a 

[21] 



religion which embodies the essence of 
science and philosophy, wherein there is 
room for the growth and development of 
every man no matter what his religion 
may be for in it he may find all the vital 
facts of his faith and more besides. 

Spiritualism is as old as man, it holds 
within its splendid philosophy and inspir- 
ing religious teachings all that has been 
and the essence of all that will be. Take 
the sacred books of all nations, the Gospel 
of Buddha, the Koran of Mohamet, the 
legends of the Talmud, etc., and with them 
place the old and new testament ; here you 
have combined the spiritual history, the 
religious revelations of the early ages of 
man. Spiritualism is the vital flame of 
truth in every one of these books giving 
light and life to their pages; its great fea- 
ture is to bring man in communion with 
the so-called dead, and this has been the 
source, the inspiration, from which every 
religion has been born. As Moses and 
Mohamet went up on the mountain to 
talk with the spirit and Buddha listened to 
its voice within the walls of his palace, so 

[22] 



the great founders of religious systems re- 
ceived their knowledge through spirit re- 
turn from the ancient up to the present 
day. 

Ancient Spiritualism is as old as man, 
but spiritualism in its more modern ex- 
pression is only seventy years old. It had 
its humble beginning in the year eighteen 
forty eight, when in a small cottage in 
Hidesville, N. Y., where a family lived by 
the name of Fox, rappings and other 
strange noises were heard. John D. Fox 
and wife and two daughters investigated 
these manifestations and finally on the 
night of March thirty-first intelligent re- 
sponses were gained by means of raps. 
In the last seventy years these little raps 
have echoed and re-echoed around the en- 
tire world, arousing such interest that so- 
cieties have been formed, churches and 
temples erected, children's lyceums insti- 
tuted, while thousands of books have been 
published. The National Spiritualists' 
Association, with state associations, with 
affiliated local societies in every state in 
the union has been founded. All this 

[23] 



wonderful work in seventy years! What 
a great future lies before this truth, whose 
destiny is to become the universal reli- 
gion. 

The first great mission of Spiritualism 
is to reveal truth. Truth is one, it never 
contradicts itself. One truth cannot con- 
tradict another, but error can contradict 
itself so that there may be many errors, 
each at variance with the rest. Truth is 
therefore of necessity an element of har- 
mony, error is necessarily an element of 
discord. In educating man, Spiritualism 
is thereby overcoming the greatest of all 
evils — ignorance. We hear much of the 
power of knowledge but of the frightful 
and terrible effects of ignorance little. 
That which liberates man from ignorance 
conveys unto him life's greatest blessing 
— freedom crowned with knowledge. Its 
purpose is then to educate man into the 
laws governing life in its expression here 
in matter and also when dissolved into its 
own natural element in the spirit world. 

Its great work is to establish commu- 
nion between the two worlds. To lift the 

[24] 



veil between the world of flesh and the 
plane of spirit. In bringing man into per- 
sonal touch with the immortals on the 
other side it conveys to him all the pow- 
ers and the wisdom of their experiences, 
which, as a guide to his life here today, 
will indeed be a light on his path to aid 
his footsteps up the ascent of life. A man 
who holds communion with the spirit 
world is going to be happier, stronger and 
a more useful member of society for so 
doing. Its effects are certain to be con- 
structive to him physically, mentally and 
spiritually. 

The purpose of Spiritualism is not only 
to preach the truth that man shall never 
die, but prove it to the world as a fact by 
opening up the way broader and clearer 
through which the spirits of the so-called 
dead can communicate with those in the 
flesh. Spiritualism, with its splendid 
phenomena, has annihilated the darkness 
that surrounds the tomb, removed indeed 
the sting from death and revealed, in all 
its beauty, its divine splendor, the life 
after death. It shows the beloved dead 

[25] 



alive, with a life radiant, in which the 
shadows of earth play no part, but peace, 
joy and love abound. 

The evidence upon which the creeds of 
theology base their teachings, are reve- 
lations which occurred two thousand 
years ago and have never been repeated 
since that time. The mighty truths of 
spiritualism do not rest alone upon the 
revelations of the far distant past, but up- 
on what is of much more vital importance 
— the ever living present. Angels are de- 
scending to commune with man in great- 
er numbers and in a more satisfactory 
manner today than they did two thousand 
years ago and man is awakening to their 
presence being thrilled by their touch and 
inspired by the eminations of their wis- 
dom. There is being brought about a 
great resurrection of the spirit within man 
and with its expression comes into being 
spiritual gifts which enable man to see, 
hear, feel and respond to the higher 
things of the spirit. The time of miracles 
has never passed; in fact there is now 
dawning a period in which greater revela- 

[26] 



tions of the spirit will be revealed to man 
than ever before in the world's history. 
The spirits of the immortal dead are here 
knocking at the heart of every man; 
they bring gifts, treasures beyond price to 
those who will open the door and bid 
them enter. It is the mission of spiritual- 
ism to awaken man to their presence and 
assist him to get into communication with 
them. What could be greater, grander or 
more inspiring than this — to know the be- 
loved dead live, to see them face to face, 
to hear once again their dear familiar 
voices, to feel the soft pressure of their 
arms, in other words to know there is no 
death, but life everlasting and eternal. 

Spiritualism recognizes man as a think- 
ing being with the God-given right of 
thinking for himself. It does not take 
man as a child to be given a bad dose of 
medicine holding his nose while it forces 
down his throat a bitter dose — that is 
practically what theology has done and is 
doing — and then if he rebels they threaten 
him with hell-fire. God gave you a mind 
to use and your main business is to use it 

[27] 



in solving all the problems of your exist- 
ence. Man was made to think for himself, 
there is no liberty, no manhood, no educa- 
tion, no mental or spiritual unfoldment 
unless one thinks for himself. All the great 
saviors, liberators and benefactors the 
world has ever known were free-thinkers. 
They were men who were not affected or 
psychologized by the narrow religious 
systems of their time. Spiritualism aims 
to help man use his mind, think for him- 
self. It encourages the use of his reason 
and every faculty of his being to investi- 
gate, to test and decide the values of the 
truths it offers him. The result must ever 
be favorable to spiritualism as well as a 
great advantage to the investigator. 

A questioning mind is a healthy mind; 
the one that takes everything for granted 
is not alive; the mind that wants to know, 
desires truth, asks questions, craves 
knowledge is exercising its divine right. 
Spiritualism is the religion for the think- 
ing man, it encourages free-thinking, it as- 
sists man to break down the bars of igno- 
rance and open wide the windows of his 

[28] 



soul to truth's mighty light, to come out 
of the prison house of superstition and 
fear into that liberty which crowns knowl- 
edge. As light is the enemy of darkness, 
so truth destroys error and in the teach- 
ings of spiritualism the white, searching 
light of truth annihilates ignorance, dis- 
solves superstition and reveals life here 
and hereafter as it really is. 

Those who condemn it are not free; 
they are either enslaved by the prejudice 
of some narrow religious opinion or are 
influenced by some private motive of pol- 
icy which pays them to work against it. 
Those who talk against and condemn it 
the most are the ones who know the least 
about it, as all honest and sincere investi- 
gators who have really given time and 
thought to it have become convinced of 
the reality and sublime value of its truths. 

Spiritualism depends for the evidence 
of its phenomena upon mediums, those 
who have developed spiritual powers, that 
enable them to be the means of commu- 
nion between the living and the so-called 
dead. The great majority of these me- 

[29] 



diums before the public are entirely hon- 
est but unfortunately there are a few un- 
principled persons who use it as a cloak 
to hide their own selfish ends, and it is 
to these few, masquerading under so 
sacred a guise, that much criticism against 
Spiritualism can be traced. Why should 
a cause be denounced because one finds 
some of its representatives are dishonest? 
Does one denounce wholesale the science 
of medicine because one finds a quack 
doctor? Does one condemn the profession 
of law because of an unfortunate experi- 
ence with a dishonest lawyer? Would it 
be fair to denounce all clergery as dishon- 
est and immoral because one steals the 
church money and runs away with the 
organist's wife? Certainly not! Why 
then should the sacred cause of Spiritual- 
ism be denounced because in a rare in- 
stance a medium is found to be dishonest 
or immoral? Spiritualism owes much to 
its faithful mediums for it is by their 
work, their sacrifice that its truths have 
been proven to millions ; they are the ones 
who have bridged the space between the 

[30] 



two worlds, brought courage to the weak 
and sorrowing with messages from the 
spirit world. 

We find, in studying the revelations in 
Spiritualism, that it holds the fundamen- 
tal truths which are the life of various re- 
ligious systems. It teaches, as do the ori- 
ental religions, the evolution of the soul 
of man through various incarnations in 
the flesh until he is done with earth and 
ready and willing to mount to the heights 
of the spirit world, which the orientals 
call Nirvana. 

It recognizes Jesus as one of the world's 
saviors, a great soul alive with God, 
whose divine message to man was one of 
the greatest ever given. It seeks to bring 
His word, His message to man to show 
that it is the truth that He taught that can 
save, not His death on the cross. No 
blood can atone or wash man clean of sin ; 
the only thing that can save is truth. As 
Jesus said, "The truth shall make you 
free." He brought into the world, as 
many other souls have, the principles of 
great truths and it is these very principles 

[31] 



that Spiritualism aims to instill into the 
heart of every man. So Spiritualism is 
working, not against Christ, but with 
Him. He said He would send the com- 
forter. Spiritualism is indeed this com- 
forter, which brings man nearer to the di- 
vine spirit of Jesus, in realizing the full 
value of His teachings and His life. Too 
much stress has been laid on the import- 
ance of His death and too little concerning 
His message to man. Spiritualism, in its 
mission embraces the value of Jesus' mes- 
sage, but puts His death as a feature of 
His life, which has no bearing upon the 
salvation of man. 

Spiritulaism recognizes the healing 
power and teaches its followers how to use 
it. It helps man to see that the same 
force which assisted Jesus in His wonder- 
ful cures is in the world today and man 
can bring himself in tune with it and ap- 
propriate for his own use and to bless 
others with. 

It not only recognizes the power to heal 
but all other spiritual gifts it teaches the 
full value of. The power of vision and 

[32] 



the value of dreams, the ability to com- 
mune with spirits and thereby be brought 
in closer atonement with God. 

Immortality, re-embodiment, evolution, 
teachings of Jesus, of Buddha and all the 
other great masters, healing and the use 
of all spiritual powers and privileges — 
these are the main principles of the ad- 
vanced teachings of modern spiritualism, 
the universal religion, which is destined to 
become the guide and savior of all human- 
ity. 

Here is a religion with which science 
can go arm in arm. Every move forward 
of science, every new discovery, has but 
helped the progress of Spiritualism. 
Science, with her great torch of knowl- 
edge held aloft, is the enemy to every er- 
ror and superstition. The creeds and 
dogmas fear science more than they do 
the devil, as the devil is their main instru- 
ment for converting souls, while science is 
a force whose mighty powers prove the 
errors of their creed. Spiritualism wel- 
comes science, sees in her a friend whose 
revelations but prove as an established 

[33] 



fact its teachings ; and this is why the lead- 
ing scientists are Spiritualists. They have 
found a religion at last which is founded 
upon scientific principles, which is har- 
moniously related to all laws which gov- 
ern the universe. 

The world is soul hungry, it has cried 
for bread and the church has given it a 
stone, it has sought truth and received er- 
ror; so it is now turning away from the 
church and receiving the bread of life, 
true sustenance in spiritualist meetings. 
All over the world people are gathering 
together and in a few hours receiving 
more enlightenment, more consolation 
than they did in their cold and narrow 
creeds for years. The only thing of value 
the creeds have to offer you is the love 
and teachings of Jesus and they come to 
you more direct and unadulterated and in 
a purer form through the teachings of 
spiritualism. 

The mission of Spiritualism is to edu- 
cate man, to free him from the limitations 
of ignorance. The work of the creeds 
and dogmas has ever been to keep man in 

[34] 



ignorance concerning the vital laws of na- 
ture and of God. Look into the history 
of the church and see what a barrier it 
has ever been to knowledge and to truth. 
It has stood in the way of every discovery, 
every invention; it has done all in its 
power to prevent the free growth and de- 
velopment of intellect. It has made it a 
sin to think and has dishonored, persecut- 
ed and punished the representatives of di- 
vine knowledge and truth who not only 
were brave enough to think for them- 
selves, but dared to utter what they knew 
to be true. The history of the church is 
a bloody one, like unto the bloody creed 
it teaches. No wonder under the sway of 
such a religion the world has been kept 
in warfare. With them blood is the vital 
thing, in comparison to which truth, 
knowledge, wisdom, love, sympathy and 
brotherhood all sink into oblivion. For- 
tunately the church is gradually losing its 
power, its structure reared on the drifting 
sands of error must pass away but with its 
passing nothing of real value will be lost 
for the divine truths gleaming beneath all 

[35] 



the debris of ignorance and superstitution 
will be brought into full expression. 

The pure ethical teachings of Christian- 
ity will stand forever ; every wise maxim, 
every just law, every great and splendid 
thought will remain and the rest will be 
discarded to the trash-heap of ignorance 
and superstition. All the splendor, all the 
grandeur of the divine truth taught by 
Jesus and His disciples will remain. The 
spirit of Jesus is alive in the world today 
and He is speaking to man. His message 
is echoing and re-echoing throughout the 
corridors of the infinite and those who 
have developed spiritual powers can feel 
and respond to His divine presence. 

Another great fact which puts Spirit- 
ualism as the foremost religion in the 
world today is its attitude to woman, it is 
her friend, it recognizes her true worth, 
her wonderful possibilities and it offers 
her its great powers and forces to gain 
that place in the world which rightfully 
belongs to her. It seeks to free her from 
all that limits and binds and bring her into 
that state of liberty which is the greatest 

[36] 



blessing of life. Much that has held wo- 
man in bondage can be traced to the nar- 
row false teachings of the church, which 
is based upon a theology which lays the 
blame of the fall of man upon a woman, 
bringing out the point that the devil could 
influence her a great deal easier than he 
could the man; also revealing woman as 
merely a rudimentary part of man being 
made from a rib taken from his body. 
Statement after statement is made right 
through the teachings of theology which 
recognize woman as only a slave to man 
with little or no intelligence whose main 
and only business in life is to do what 
man tells her to. The motto of theology 
to woman is "Obey man." 

Woman has awakened in the last thirty 
years, she has roused herself and is now 
throwing off the yoke of bondage and 
claiming the liberty which rightfully be- 
longs to her. Spiritualism has done more 
than any other religion to give woman her 
rights. It has taught the equal rights of 
man and woman, it has encouraged wo- 
man to develop and unfold herself spirit- 

[37] 



ually and intellectually that she might 
take her place in the world beside man, 
not as his slave, his chattel but as his right- 
hand partner. Spiritualism has recogniz- 
ed woman to the extent of ordaining her 
to fill the public rostrum as an exponent 
of its truths. Some of the ablest lecturers 
and mediums before the public in the 
cause of Spiritualism are women whose 
work has not only been a credit to them- 
selves but also to the cause. 

Here we have a religion broad and fair 
enough to give woman equal rights with 
man; whose works and teachings strive 
for the true liberty of every human being, 
to break the chains forged by ignorance 
and superstition and give that knowledge 
and power which is only born of freedom. 
Here is a religion which not only recog- 
nizes the father-hood and mother-hood of 
God, the brother-hood of man, but also the 
sublime fact that no soul can be lost or de- 
stroyed but that every human being can 
ultimately enjoy the blessings of the 
heavenly life. In such a religion there is 
no room for hate, for cruelty or jeal- 

[38] 



ousy, no room for hell-fire, destruction, 
but as the rising sun puts to flight all the 
shadows of night, so the evils of the world, 
the lies, the superstitions must depart and 
their place forever filled with the glory of 
Truth, the inspiration of Love, the Ra- 
diance of Knowledge, and the majesty of 
Power. 



[39] 



INFLUENCES AFFECTING THE LIFE 

OF MAN. 

Man might be likened unto a ship at 
sea bound for a certain port. The time 
of her safe arrival depends upon certain 
conditions. These conditions may hasten, 
prevent or delay her arrival. So man, on 
the great sea of life, is affected greatly by 
conditions and influences whose powers 
are helpful or hurtful to his career. These 
influences are numberless, but they spring 
from great central causes which are the 
law of Karma, physical Heredity, Spirit 
Influences, Astrological Conditions and 
the influence of environment. These 
great powers influence and control his life 
to a great degree, they affect his failure, 
his success, his sorrows, his joys, his 
health, his disease, his birth and his death. 
Therefore a knowledge of these forces 
gives man the power of accepting the 
good which can come from them and re- 
jecting the bad. The saying that ''Knowl- 
edge is power" is the greatest of all truths, 
for it casteth out fear and it is fear which 
binds man. Knowledge makes him free. 

[40] 



In making him free, gives him the oppor- 
tunity to work out his destiny. In the 
beginning man's religion was a religion of 
fear. He feared all things, because he did 
not understand the universe or its mani- 
festations, so he worshipped the gods in 
fear, and even today in our modern Chris- 
tianity man worships God in a love which 
is mingled with fear. We want no fear in 
the highest religion, because as long as 
there is any fear lurking within the con- 
sciousness of man his life is greatly limit- 
ed in its expression. So knowledge, di- 
vine wisdom, has grown in the mind of 
man in the passing years, like a loving 
hand drawing the curtain which man's ig- 
norance has hung between God and him- 
self that the divine light of truth may 
shine upon him, clothing him with immor- 
tal power, and revealing to him that God 
is love, and as he allows the love within 
his own being to manifest itself in pure 
thoughts and good deeds he will become 
God-like not only in love but in power, 
in Wisdom, and in Truth. 

Accepting the statement that man is an 
immortal soul, the great power which in- 



fluences his life more than any other is 
the law of Karma. The word Karma is 
an oriental name for the law we recognize 
as cause and effect. In our everyday life 
all of our experiences teach us to act ac- 
cording to our estimate of the conse- 
quences to follow, so that we work or rest, 
indulge ourselves, or make sacrifices, 
scheme and plan, eat and drink, for the 
most part with regard to the effect those 
activities will have upon our life as a 
whole. It is from the Orient we receive 
the teachings of Karma, which was at one 
time the centre of civilization and of 
knowledge. The thoughts which are ob- 
tained from the sacred books of the east 
are, when freed from the fables which 
have veiled them, of the highest. The 
earnest seeker after truth is willing to ac- 
cept from any quarter and any source, 
knowledge, he is like a thirsty man who 
will drink as eagerly from a tin cup as 
from a crystal glass. So the truth seeker 
never allows preconceived ideas or preju- 
dices to interfere with him in receiving 
new knowledge. This has led the people 

[42] 



of the Western world to study the oriental 
teachings of the East and their doctrine of 
Karma has become universally known. 
This same law is clearly expressed in the 
Christian Bible where it is written: 
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
also reap." In spite of this fact many of 
the Christians seek to find an escape for 
the sinner by which the reaction of his 
wrong doings will not affect him. 

To realize fully the law and the power 
of Karma we must accept the truth of re- 
embodiment, that is we must believe that 
man lived, previous to his present life, in 
the body, in the world of spirit and before 
that he had lived in the body, perhaps 
many times. 

Man comes to earth with a threefold 
personal Karma. There is first his whole 
mass of unpaid debts accumulated from 
the experiences of past lives, and which so 
far he has not been able to work off. Sec- 
ond there is the destiny of his present life 
upon which he is entering, and third, there 
is the new Karma which he is going to 
make. 

[43] 



The truth of re-embodiment renders 
justice to God and power to man. It re- 
veals the great fact that all human beings 
are on their way to ultimate perfection, 
that the blessings of the higher life shall 
be enjoyed by all. In this great doctrine 
there are none eternally damned or lost, 
but all have a chance to redeem them- 
selves through good works. 

We are continually making new Kar- 
ma, or in other words we are creating 
causes which will inevitably be followed 
by corresponding effects. Pain follows 
our mistakes, strength is developed by 
struggle, w;e reap after every sowing the 
natural result. Happiness grows out of 
right, sorrow out of wrong. So in every 
case the individual's past explains the in- 
dividual's present, and when the law of 
growth is known and obeyed, man can 
build for himself a sublime destiny. 
Genius is but the result of tireless effort 
which has been continued for many lives. 
Socrates said "The soul which has seen 
most of truth shall come to the next birth 

[44] 



as a philosopher or artist, or some musi- 
cal and loving nature." 

The advantage gained by knowledge of 
this law is that we cease to blame God 
for our mistakes, but recognize our life 
is what we have made it. The fault lies 
within ourselves. Even if there are some 
who, for no other reason, than that they 
dislike the idea of re-embodiment, and 
therefore will not believe in it, if they will 
at least recognize the law of cause and 
effect, which is working constantly in 
their lives, they will be greatly benefited 
by it. Whether we personally believe or 
not in this great law, it governs our lives 
just the same, but if we will believe in it 
and work with it we can make of it a kind 
friend instead of a seeming enemy. 

There are many who believe in Fate in 
the sense of predestination, that is that 
everything has been ordained from the be- 
ginning of the world and all that man can 
do is to bow to the inevitable. This idea 
has come down from ancient times and is 
clearly expressed in the following lines 
from the Rubayat. 

[45] 



"Tis all a checker board of nights and 

days, 
Where destiny with men for pieces play — 
Hither and thither moves and mates and 

slays, 
And one by one back in the closet lays." 

Such a belief takes away all freedom from 
an individual and makes him but an in- 
strument in the hands of some cruel 
power. It is a superstition and like all 
other superstitions is founded upon a 
truth, but the truth is distorted to the ex- 
tent that it is misleading instead of help- 
ful. It is really a farstretched and igno- 
rant expression of the law of Karma 
which is every man's fate, but is every 
time of his own making. Destiny and 
Fate are not the same though they are 
grieviously confounded. The wise men 
of the East, the great Astrologers, taught 
Destiny but not Fate, that is, they taught 
that every human being had a path work- 
ed out for him but that which we call 
fortune or misfortune were largely under 
our own control. We must always look 

[46] 



upon Fate as something we can alter, 
change, as it is but the result of our own 
actions and in changing our actions we 
alter our Fate. Destiny is a far greater 
word than Fate : Fate pertains to our pres- 
ent condition. Destiny is our ultimate 
goal, the great centre toward which we are 
evolving. The ultimate destiny of man- 
kind is a glorious one, but as to when and 
how and where he will realize this divine 
state is a matter which depends solely 
upon himself. This is illustrated in the 
following quotation: "Allow the thought 
and it leads to a choice, accept the choice 
and it leads to an act, continue the act and 
it forms a habit, follow the habit and it 
creates the character, continue the charac- 
ter and it forms the destiny." Destiny is 
indeed the result of character and life is 
the gymnasium for the development of it. 
Heredity is another factor which in- 
fluences the life of man. The power of 
which has been exaggerated beyond all 
credence by some. Natural inheritance is 
no doubt a fact but to assume that man 
is powerless to overcome the effects of un- 

[47] 



desirable heredity is false. It is good to 
realize that we may inherit desirable quali- 
ties, as well as undesirable ones, and it 
lies within our power to utilize the good 
and weed out the bad. Inherited tenden- 
cies to drunkenness, to stealing, and all 
other repulsive perversions of appetite 
must be overcome by mental culture. How 
sad it is when we realize how many peo- 
ple make themselves miserable, worrying 
for fear they will develop some dreadful 
disease because their parents or grand- 
parents happen to die with it. Surely, if 
by nothing else, their fear alone is 
laying them open to the monster they 
most dread. Whereas a knowledge of 
selfhood, an understanding of the power 
of the Spirit and they could cast their fear 
to the winds. 

Astrology is a science of the stars and 
is one of the oldest beliefs prevailing in 
very early times among the Egyptians, 
Hindoos and Chinese. Observing the in- 
fluence of the Heavenly bodies and espe- 
cially the Sun in ruling the seasons, and 
determining the crops, man came natural- 

[ 48] 



\y to suppose that the planets also influ- 
enced his life. In Christianity we see an 
expression of the relation between the 
stars and man in that beautiful story of 
the wise men journeying to Jesus' cradle, 
guided by the star in the East. 

For great solitary minds Astrology has 
ever had an attraction. Napoleon often 
spoke of the star of his destiny. We must 
not allow ourselves if we take up the study 
of Astrology to go to the extreme limit 
of believing the stars have absolute con- 
trol over our lives, that would indeed be 
superstition; but that they have an influ- 
ence either favorable or unfavorable is in- 
deed true. The time honored affirmation, 
"The wise man rules his stars, the foolish 
man obeys them;" is indeed an expression 
of wisdom. For man can if he will but 
assert his will power, rise above every 
limitation and can overcome every obsta- 
cle, no matter from what source they may 
arise. 

There is however a vital thing in our 
lives, which is not distant like some planet 
moving in space, but close, surrounding 

[49] 



us on every side, and the most partial of 
men cannot help but recognize and re- 
spect its powers. This surrounding con- 
dition, which every one has to contend 
with, is environment. 

As the fountain rises and falls in the 
air, and is affected in its expression by the 
wind, which makes up its environment, 
so the life of man is controlled and affect- 
ed by the environment in which he lives. 
The power however which environment 
has upon man depends upon himself in 
how much he will allow surrounding con- 
ditions to influence him. Some go so far 
as to say that environment makes the 
man — if this was so Lincoln would have 
been a wood chopper, Columbus a wea- 
ver, Ben Johnson a bricklayer all their 
lives, but instead of letting environment 
shape their lives, they rose superior to it 
and controlled it, then by transforming it 
until it corresponded with their highest 
desires and aims. 

It is a fact that environment will con- 
trol and limit all who will allow them- 
selves to be guided and controlled by it. 

[50] 



And it is likewise true that it is sometimes 
impossible to work sudden great changes 
in one's surroundings, but as the winter 
slowly gives way to the warmth and 
beauty of spring, which gradually trans- 
forms the cold barren earth into a scene of 
beauty — so man, if he will use the divine 
power within him, can bring back the 
spring time of youth and joy over the 
winter of age and sorrow. 

It is from the world of spirit man re- 
ceives his greatest inspiration and assist- 
ance, which if he will but respond to, can 
guide and help him up the steps of life far 
above the low lands of sorrow and de- 
spair, up to the mountain peaks of spirit- 
ual attainment and power. 

As to what kind of spirit a man may 
draw around him depends upon his own 
desires and inclinations. If his desires are 
low he will naturally attract spirits from 
the lower spheres, but if he seeks the high- 
est, the best and noblest spiritual influ- 
ences will be drawn to him. 

Laugh at Karma, at Environment, at 
Heredity, at Astrology, snap your fingers 

[51] 



in the face of evil spirits, know all these 
things for what they are, emanations from 
your own being, and stand fearless and 
strike from the shoulder, once, twice, 
thrice, times innumerable till your strokes 
lay low the monsters that have broken 
their teeth on your unyielding shoulders. 
This is a glimpse of life as life should be, 
here life is self-determined, here no hand 
but yours guides, no brain but yours 
thinks, no strength but yours works, no 
soul but yours proclaims your sublime 
destiny, and the whole vast universe waits 
to aid you, all the resources of nature and 
of God are yours to command, to use for 
the development of your own immortal 
spirit and for the upliftment of your fel- 
low man. 



[52} 



LIFE AFTER DEATH. 

Amid all the uncertainties of this 
life there is one thing that is a certainty. 
Many may be successful in their life's 
work, many may reach the heights of 
their ambitions, or on the other hand 
many may fail in their endeavor, but all 
this success or failure, poverty or riches, 
is a matter of uncertainty, depending upon 
external and internal conditions. This 
change comes to all, the rich and the poor 
alike, the famous and the unknown, the 
good and the bad, all, sooner or later must 
meet it, and this great certainty, which 
can be put off but never escaped, is death. 

It is unfortunate that this death, which 
is really a change from one state of being 
into another, a birth, as it were, into an- 
other world, should be pictured under 
such aspects of horror as it is. Death in 
the minds of many is associated with such 
horrible symbols as skull and cross-bones, 
a skeleton with scythe and hour glass, or 
it appears to be some great, dark chasm 
on the very edge of which man walks and 

[53] 



at any moment is apt to be pushed into 
its unfathomable depths. 

How different man's outlook upon 
death is when he views it from a stand- 
point of spiritual truth; then instead of 
being something horrible, something to 
fear, it becomes a normal and natural 
change, a part of life's evolution and 
as necessary a factor in the existence 
of man as birth. For it means to 
him, when it comes, freedom, a greater 
liberty to realize his ideal, to continue his 
work and to develop more fully the pos- 
sibilities of his nature. It leads him out 
into that larger invisible world which sur- 
rounds this planet, it opens up unto him 
the life after death. A life which man has 
pondered on in all ages, and which his re- 
ligions have outlined for him in varying 
hues. 

Although the world's religions differ 
widely on many subjects, on at least one 
they all agree and that is the immortality 
of the soul. That the soul of man is im- 
mortal is the most vital and important 
principle in all religions, for in every age, 

[«1 



and among all people, great souls have 
proclaimed with one voice that although 
the body, an outer shell, perishes, yet the 
soul endures forever. But as to where 
the soul goes after death, it's condition 
and environment in that great beyond is 
a subject upon which the various religions 
differ widely. 

We find in studying the Koran as given 
by Mahomet and followed by millions of 
human lives today as their guide that the 
future life is made up of a heaven and 
hell, the hell being a place of torment by 
fire, and the heaven a sort of harem filled 
with beautiful girls and embowered with 
flowers whose perfume never palls and 
whose beauty never fades. In picturing 
this after life the Arabian prophet dwelled 
upon the groves, the fountains, the pearls 
and diamonds, the robes of silk and 
palaces of marble. 

In the Gospel of Buddha, the Enlight- 
ened One, we find that the life after deafli 
is a spiritual state which comes in between 
man's earth lives and in which each soul 
reaps the result of its past life and pre- 

[55] 



pares to enter again on the earth plane 
and thereby, by many lives lived here on 
earth, the soul finally gains all the knowl- 
edge necessary, becomes perfected and 
rises unto Nirvana. 

From the standpoint of theology the 
future life consists of two states of being, 
heaven and hell. In the Christian world 
they believe that Angels were created 
from the beginning and of them was form- 
ed heaven and then the Devil, or Satan, 
was an Angel of light, but becoming re- 
bellious he was cast down with his crew 
and of them was founded hell. This hell 
is a place of fire in which the sinner must 
suffer eternally without hope of ever be- 
ing saved from the torture. Some people 
think that the church does not teach hell 
and eternal damnation any longer. Per- 
haps some churches do not, but many of 
them do. In Washington, D. C, only last 
winter the editor of one of the leading pa- 
pers published an article headed, "What 
will happen to the sinner after death?" in 
which he interviewed the ministers of the 
different denominations to get their 

[56] 



opinion. This is what the Catholic Priest 
said, "The truth of the doctrine of hell is 
certainly most appalling. It is a truth, 
however, as certain as the existence of 
God/' 

The Baptist minister said, "To say that 
everlasting punishment does not mean 
punishment without end is but to state the 
personal opinion of some men not to 
make a statement of divine scripture." 

The Presbyterian minister states, "The 
doctrine of endless punishment, of the 
final impenitent is an awful truth." It 
would be a waste of space to quote more, 
but this reveals that hell, that dreadful 
place of eternal fire is believed in and 
taught in some of the churches today. 
To think that now, in this so-called en- 
lightened age, there are those who believe 
in a hell such as Spurgeon so clearly de- 
scribes here: "There is a real fire in hell 
as truly as you now have a real body, a 
fire exactly like that which we have on 
earth in everything except this that it will 
not consume though it will torture you. 
You have seen the asbestos lying in the 

[57] 



fire red hot, but when you take it out it 
is unconsumed. So your body will be 
prepared by God in such a way that it 
will burn forever without being consum- 
ed." This is the barbaric conception of 
hell as formulated by the Christians who 
claim to be the most enlightened people 
on the face of the globe, and who are so 
certain that their religion is the only true 
one that they send missionaries all over 
the world to teach it to the poor heathens, 
who have in many instances a religion 
which transcends in spiritual truth and 
grandeur that of theology. In fact it would 
seem that when the so-called Christians 
created hell they certainly did so in a more 
horrible manner than any of their pagan 
friends. 

As the hell of theology is filled with hu- 
man hate and anguish, its heaven is a 
rather dull milk and water kind of place. 
Its golden streets and pearly gates, its 
harps and robes and crowns, with a back- 
ground of blue clouds is the substance of 
it. The only occupation of its bliss-en- 
tranced inhabitants is to sing hosannas to 

[58] 



the accompaniment of harps with the ex- 
ception of the Christian-like (?) enjoy- 
ment of being able to look down into hell 
and witness the souls of the damned be- 
ing roasted. As one clergyman puts it, 
"You will then be so purified and perfect- 
ed that as you gaze on that sea of suffer- 
ing it will only increase your joy." In- 
stead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants 
with a taste for science, conversation and 
friendship they have created something 
more like a singing school and called it 
Heaven. 

It is indeed with a feeling of satisfac- 
tion one turns to the teachings of Sweden- 
borg for here is more clearly revealed the 
future life, and his descriptions are not 
given from the creations of his own imagi- 
nations but come to him from the lips of 
disembodied spirits. In Swedenborg's 
wonderful book, "Heaven and Hell," he 
teaches that self love is the cause of all 
the hell in this world and the next. Self 
love is to will well to self alone. Heaven- 
ly love loves all for the sake of all. Love 
is therefore the creator of both heaven and 

[59] 



hell. He also states that "He who wills 
and loves evil in this world, wills and loves 
evil in the other life." 

It is not, however, until we study the 
splendid philosophy of modern Spiritual- 
ism that we find the greatest of all revela- 
tions concerning the life after death, and 
these given in a more rational and satis- 
factory manner than all previous revela- 
tions. Until it came as the world's great 
teacher and comforter death was a king of 
terrors. It has brought man in communi- 
cation with the so-called dead and from 
these interviews revealed the life over 
there. The great and wise souls on the 
spirit side of life tell man that the doctrine 
of a burning hell is false, that there are no 
realms of physical torment there. The life 
beyond is a continuation of this earth life 
only under more wonderful and favorable 
conditions; and that man, mentally speak- 
ing, is the same after death as he was be- 
fore. That the change affects him no 
more than removing his clothes influences 
him now. His body is the same body 
whether it is naked or clothed, his spirit 

[60] 



is the same entity out of the body as when 
it occupied its robe of flesh. As a bird 
can fly no higher than its wings will carry 
it, man can, in the spirit world, ascend 
only so high as his aspirations will lift him, 
and although it is impossible for a man, 
by merely willing it, to add wings to his 
body it is possible for a man, by merely 
willing it, to add wings to his soul. 

The future life then depends absolutely 
upon the state of man's mind. Heaven 
or hell are not objective planes so much 
as states of consciousness. As the Per- 
sian poet so clearly gives it: 

"I send my soul through the Invisible, 
Some letter of that After-life to spell; 
And by and by my soul return'd to me, 
And answer'd, 'I myself am Heaven and 
Hell.' " 

Here is the great vital truth in a nut- 
shell and it shows man that every soul 
makes for itself its own heaven or its 
own hell. The open secret of heaven 
here or hereafter is pure love, and he who 

[61] 



dwells in perfect love is already in hea- 
ven. As far as punishment for sin is con- 
cerned Paul knew what he was saying 
when he uttered, "Whatsoever a man 
soweth that shall he also reap." Here is 
the principle upon which the rational hell 
must be conceived and described. 

These revelations remove the false 
teachings of how through another great 
soul's bloody sacrifice man can be redeem- 
ed from sin and lifted to the highest 
heaven, no matter how great a sinner he 
may be. It exposes the folly of believing 
that the murderer who kisses the crucifix 
and dies enters paradise, and had he not 
kissed the crucifix hell would have been 
his eternal doom. But this higher spirit- 
ual knowledge teaches that man is the 
savior of his own soul, the creator of his 
destiny both here and hereafter, and so 
the responsibility of his eternal future lies 
in his own hands and he can be what he 
wills to be. As in all the infinite worlds 
beyond he could not lose self, and it is 
self that is heaven or hell, man must get 
right within himself, and heaven with all 
its unlimited possibilities will be revealed 
unto him. 

[62] 



THE HEALING POWER. 

It is good to realize that here around us 
in the world today people are waking up 
to the fact that illness is not as they were 
led in the past to believe, a condition that 
they must suffer in patience as part of 
God's will, but a penalty which they bring 
upon themselves by their ignorance of 
nature's laws. By their lack of thought 
in conducting their lives and also by their 
belief in certain things which are condu- 
cive to illness instead of being productive 
of good health. With this awakening, ill- 
ness becomes something to be more 
ashamed than proud of, as it reveals igno- 
rance, lack of knowledge, carelessness on 
the part of the one who is ill. 

It is strange indeed when we can realize 
that the central figure around which Chris- 
tianity is built, Jesus of Nazareth, who 
demonstrated the healing of the sick all 
through his administration and who said, 
"Greater things than I do ye shall also 
do," that the church built to honor his 
name and carry on his works, should leave 

[63] 



out this great and most important factor. 
It took Mary Baker Eddy in the nineteenth 
century to bring to the minds of the 
Christian world that the works of Jesus 
could not only be taught, but demon- 
strated, and to this great truth Christian 
Science owes it success. The power that 
will liberate man from disease and free 
him from suffering is the greatest and 
most valuable force in the world today. 
To say that Christian Science has a corner 
on this great healing power is as ridiculous 
as to say any particular religious creed 
has the only divine revelation of truth or 
the whole of truth. Christian Science 
simply is demonstrating a force which has 
been used by all healers of the past and 
present and which is open and ready to 
serve all who will but accept it and put it 
into expression. It is as free as the sun- 
light and just as plentiful. It is an all 
abiding energy responding to the will of 
man, and the very air he breathes abounds 
with it. Around this great healing power 
there have been formed various creeds 
and dogmas built up from the opinions of 

[64] 



different people on the subject of healing. 
So, as the result, we have today Christian 
Science, Metaphysical Healing, Magnetic 
Healing, Spiritual Healing, Faith Healing, 
etc. Each of these bodies, no matter how 
their views may conflict, are using the 
same power but applying it in different 
ways. 

It makes very little difference whether 
we deny the reality of disease or recog- 
nize it, as long as we bring a power to bear 
upon it, which finally overcomes it. One 
may recognize dirt in their room, but a 
broom in hand can sweep it out; so to 
recognize the existence of disease does 
not necessarily say that it is all powerful. 
The most scientific view of the question is 
to recognize disease, but also realize that 
there is a power greater, and when this 
mighty force is directed upon it, disease 
must be overcome and swept into noth- 
ingness as darkness is annihilated by the 
presence of light. Our Christian Science 
friends tell us there is no such thing as dis- 
ease, it is an unreality and pain is an illu- 
sion of mortal mind; nevertheless when 

[65] 



one is suffering from the toothache, it is 
about the strongest "illusion" and "un- 
reality" that can be imagined. It is true 
indeed that pain and disease are not real- 
ities in the sense that there is in them no 
eternal quality. This is a glorious truth, 
and one to give courage to those who suf- 
fer, but although their difficulties may not 
be real in an eternal sense, they are very 
certain conditions in the present state. 
And so we might just as well call a spade 
a spade and recognize disease and suffer- 
ing in bringing this power to bear upon it, 
realizing that a certain positive force can 
eradicate and overcome it. The great and 
important fact is that this healing force is 
a universal energy, an infinite reservoir of 
power from which every man can draw 
the strength to overcome illness. To say 
that only a few chosen ones can be heal- 
ers and disperse this divine energy is as 
narrow as to say only a few are gifted 
with the right to teach any art. Scripture 
says "Many are called but few are 
chosen." We might add many are called, 
but few respond to the call. And so with 

[66] 



healing, all are called to receive the great 
blessing, but few respond. 

The vital need in the world today is 
health, and a religion which rants only of 
saving souls and gives no thought to sav- 
ing the physical bodies of men which are 
the temples of the living souls falls short 
of the mark in giving to the world divine 
aid. Reveal to man a force which will 
make him well and keep him free from 
disease and you will convert him to a be- 
lief in God and immortality more quickly 
than by preaching to him for twenty 
years. The mind of man is getting more 
scientific; he wants to see things proven, 
and this glorious truth of spiritual healing 
can be demonstrated to his utmost satis- 
faction. 

Physical disease and suffering are ef- 
fects proceeding from mental states of un- 
rest and discord. These mental condi- 
tions are influenced and affected by ob- 
jects through the eye, imaginations of the 
mind or evil atmosphere of others, con- 
tact with persons or things, ignorance and 
improper control of the body. These are 

[67] 



the usual doorways through which most 
diseases find entrance to the body. At 
least two-thirds of the diseases are the 
product of fear, followed by physical 
symptoms and inflammation. Worry 
and anxiety all lead to decay and disease. 
If man keeps in his mind an image of 
himself in perfect health, full of strength 
and action and uses his will to forward 
every effort toward the attainment of this 
ideal condition, he will draw to himself 
from the unseen forces that rule the uni- 
verse that which he desires. This power 
will energize and rebuild the body, mak- 
ing it strong where before it was weak, 
and bringing health where was previously 
disease. 

That which man believes about his 
body tends to become true. It therefore 
follows that if he keeps on believing him- 
self to be healthy, handsome, youthful, 
happy, strong in body and mind and pros- 
perous, he will become all these. If he 
keeps on believing himself otherwise that 
belief will be realized in his case. 

So it is plain to see that Thought is the 

[68] 



power behind the throne, and its potent 
energy is the force which breeds disease 
or health, failure or success, poverty or 
wealth. It must be remembered that the 
thought that is creative is the chronic one, 
that is the thought that is held persistent- 
ly for years. Such a thought becomes an 
absolute power to create and bring into 
expression its likeness. So man must be 
careful of his habitual thought, not the 
one that comes today and is gone tomor- 
row, but the thought that is a fixture in 
his life yesterday, today and tomorrow; 
for that thought carves his destiny, be- 
comes a part of his character here, and 
robes his immortal soul in the life to come. 
There are thoughts which, if allowed to 
find lodgment in the mind, sap the energy 
of the body and breed germs that fester 
into diseases attacking its different organs. 
Then there are thoughts which blur the 
consciousness with a darkening fog that 
shuts out all the glory of light and in the 
shadowy darkness paints with somber 
shades, visions of dread, terror and dis- 
tress, which torture the mind worse than 

[69] 



actual experiences, as they can be almost 
endless. These mental hells that people 
create and torment themselves in, are built 
by the thoughts of fear. Kill out fear, 
and in its place put hope, which leads to 
belief and knowledge in good, then the 
arch-fiend is overcome, the cause of mis- 
ery blotted out. 

There are other thoughts that come 
with glowing light that vitalize, exhilarate, 
lifting the consciousness into a state of 
confidence and power in which the good 
appears, and where perfection, beauty, 
health and strength abound. These 
thoughts are faith, hope, expectancy, con- 
fidence and belief in the all abiding power 
of good. 

If man would be well, first he must stop 
abusing his body, making it work when it 
is tired, eat when it no longer desires food 
and forcing it into various kinds of ex- 
cesses. Or, in other words if man would 
be well, he must use common sense — 
which, by the way, is a most uncommon 
thing — and intelligent judgment in the 
care of his body. All the powers of hea- 

[70] 



ven cannot keep a human being well who 
carelessly uses his body. If he will give 
consideration to the thoughts he enter- 
tains and see that they are strong, con- 
structive thoughts, he will find that they 
will serve as wings to his soul, lifting him 
up into those sublime heights of knowl- 
edge and power, where he will realize that 
he is a part of God and has a spiritual 
power, which, when developed, will sup- 
ply every need and grant him perfect 
health. 

It must be remembered that Nature is, 
herself, a great physician and therefore 
man must do all in his power to bring 
about conditions that will assist in her 
good work. The doctor, with his knife in 
hand, ever ready to cut man open as a 
cure-all, is not a physician but a destroyer 
who fills the graveyards of the country 
with corpses. The intelligent physician 
who conscientiously seeks to assist hu- 
manity, instead of increasing his bank ac- 
count, by expensive operations, is not 
studying diseases so much as giving his 
attention to the study of health and how 

[71] 



to preserve it. The power of mind over 
matter is no longer a theory, but an es- 
tablished fact, scientifically demonstrated; 
and yet in spite of this there are physi- 
cians who, either from ignorance or preju- 
dice, will not acknowledge it. However, 
it is good to realize that some of the lead- 
ing physicians do recognize this great 
truth and are using methods similar to the 
mental and spiritual healers with good re- 
sults. 

The silence plays an important part in 
attracting the healing power, as it gives 
the necessary condition to receive freely 
and respond intelligently to its potent 
energies. Thereby an hour of silence each 
day will bring added strength to the body, 
clearness and vigor to the mind and 
when continued persistently, brings forth 
marvelous results. It is in the silence that 
the unexpected flowers of the immortal 
spirit unfurl their pure, white petals and 
reveal to man's enraptured gaze the gold- 
en heart within. It is also here within the 
magic circle drawn by the silence that the 
veil is lifted and the sublime and sacred 

[72 1 



truths of life become revealed in all their 
naked grandeur, undraped by lies and hu- 
man errors. Truth that will indeed set 
man free, free from ignorance and disease, 
the twins that ever go hand in hand, giv- 
ing him in their stead knowledge and 
health, the two attendants, who sustain 
all great and marvelous achievements. 



[73] 



MAN THE MAGICIAN. 

In these later days, when the mind of 
man has put into application so many 
wonderful inventions, that far excel our 
expectations of twenty years ago, we are 
beginning to realize that there are no 
boundary lines to man's unfoldment, 
mentally or spiritually. When we think 
of the steam engine, the steamboat, the 
power of electricity, that lights our streets, 
lifts us up in elevators and runs our street 
cars, the telephone which annihilates dis- 
tance, and enables us to talk as easily 
with a person hundreds of miles distant, 
as if they were in the same room with us 
and, last of all, the flying machine, soar- 
ing the air which will, no doubt, in fu- 
ture years become a popular means of 
travel, we can easily see how that which 
is regarded as an impossibility by the 
world at one time, in a later period be- 
comes a reality. 

All these wonders have proceeded from 
the mind of man — not many men but one 
great thinker and dreamer, here and there, 

[74] 



isolated from his fellowmen, who works 
out slowly and patiently, many times 
against great odds, his idea. Such men 
were first laughed at and called fools 
when they sought recognition, but later 
when they had succeeded in their work, 
they were regarded as benefactors of man- 
kind. These great dreamers and workers 
are the magicians of the world, whose 
powers transmute the crude into the beau- 
tiful, the useless into the useful, and, by 
the direction of their power, in the chan- 
nels religion, science, art, mechanics, lit- 
erature and music they have made the 
world what it is today in beauty, power 
and knowledge. To the few every time 
man owes his privileges, but what these 
few have done and are doing, all mankind 
can rise to if they but Will to do so. These 
great souls, who stand upon the heights, 
have earned the right to the position they 
now occupy, by sacrifice and struggle and 
that very height is open to all who will 
but climb to it. 

There is something deep, divine, mys- 
terious within man's nature from which 

[75] 



he draws the magical power to go on, 
ever forward and upward to the heights of 
progress and unfoldment. From the very 
first up to the present day, man has felt 
this longing within him and it has prompt- 
ed him to refine his nature, develop him- 
self, and slowly bring the resources of the 
earth under his control. This power when 
unfolded and developed to a great degree 
makes of him a true magician. As a bird 
can fly no higher than its wings will carry 
it, so man can rise only to the heights that 
his aspiring thoughts can lift him. To 
know the things that belong to the higher 
regions of thought, it is always necessary 
for man to raise himself to those regions. 
They do not come down to him, he must 
climb up to them, and this is accomplish- 
ed through aspiration, which always pre- 
cedes inspiration, that glorious, heavenly 
state in which man sees and knows, and 
his whole being is thrilled with the power 
of his knowledge, as the harp vibrates un- 
der the touch of a master hand. 

To be inspired man must elevate him- 
self to the plane upon which inspiration 

[76] 



dwelleth. That is why we say that in- 
spiration is the result of aspiration, be- 
cause by aspiration we look upward and 
the soul drinks of the waters of truth, as 
much as it needs, or rather we should say, 
as much as its past efforts have fitted it to 
appropriate. For in this divine fountain 
we never quite quench our thrist, as we 
are ever aspiring, ever looking for more 
light. 

At the present day there is a great up- 
heaval going on, a condition of great un- 
rest, which will shake everything to its 
very depth, nothing will escape its influ- 
ence. Government, politics, and religion 
all will be greatly affected. There will be 
chaos and confusion, darkness and dis- 
tress, but out of it all will rise order, di- 
vine harmony, a more perfect plan. The 
age of cold materialism will pass out, and 
the new goiden age of the spirit shall be 
ushered in. Man will awaken, he will be 
free ; dogma and creed will be of the past, 
and man, liberated from his confining 
limitations, will be like a bird freed from 
its cage; free to use his mind and think 

[77] 



for himself on life's great questions, free 
to listen to the promptings of that inner 
voice, whose guidance will ever lead him 
to the heights of the spirit. We can now, 
in the present day, see the signs of spirit- 
ual awakening abroad throughout the 
land, and this wave of the spirit is bring- 
ing about a state of soul sensitiveness to 
many which is enabling them to come in 
closer touch with the great invisible realm 
which sustains and surrounds this planet. 
The cultivation of this power of intuition 
is the foremost requirement for the attain- 
ment of spiritual knowledge; it is the 
source from which springs all other psy- 
chic faculties. When once man commu- 
nicates with the spirit that is within him, 
he will find that as the bird in the air, and 
the fish in the water, both are able to live, 
and know what to do there, so he can live 
his life and be guided by his spiritual na- 
ture. 

The saying which was engraved over 
the gates of the old world, "Know Thy- 
self," was indeed one of the greatest and 
wisest of suggestions, and he, who would 

[78] 



be a magician, must not only know him- 
self, but be himself . In being original we 
strike the keynote of greatness. That 
which has made all great souls has been 
their originality. Nothing of real value is 
gained by imitation, it is like the moon 
which dimly reflects the light of the sun. 
The sun's direct rays are filled with great 
life-giving principles. But the cold light 
of the moon is dead and devoid of energy 
Man should study the works of great men, 
and he should take unto himself their 
sublime suggestions, and then give to the 
world the best that is within him, without 
imitating anybody. 

Experience is the vital thing in the life 
of man, which awakens and brings into 
expression the faculties that lie within 
him. Wisdom is the result of experience, 
linked with memory, for he who remem- 
bers the lesson gained through experience 
increases his knowledge. He reaches a 
state wherein he has the ability to discrim- 
inate between the good and the bad. 

In speaking of man as a magician, it 
would first be best to define Magic, as to 

[79] 



many minds the words magic and ma- 
gician are synonymous with those of con- 
juror or sleight-of-hand performers, who 
does mysterious tricks on the stage. Pa- 
racelsus tells us that "Magic is the exact 
and absolute science of nature and her 
laws, and through the science of nature is 
closely connected with religion, since it 
initiates men into the secrets of divinity/' 
The exercise of true magic does not re- 
quire ceremonies or the making of circles. 
It only requires strong faith in the omnip- 
otent power of all good. All things Eire 
controlled by law. The magician studies 
the laws governing the universe, and then 
makes every effort to work in harmony 
with them, thereby making them his ser- 
vants in the working out of his ideas. 

The great work is the creation of man 
by himself, and the materials of which the 
superior man is constructed are the emo- 
tions of the spirit. The builders are Love, 
Will and Reason, and Wisdom is the su- 
preme architect. Carlyle said "The mean- 
ing of life here on earth might be defined 
as consisting in this — To unfold yourself, 

[80] 



to work what thing you have the facul- 
ty." It is indeed by work, and work alone, 
that man reaches any high plane of attain- 
ment. 

When we attend the recital of a great 
musician we are thrilled, charmed by the 
beauty and power of expression. A sub- 
tie something which is called personal 
magnetism holds us, psychologizes us, 
and, for the time our minds are under the 
control of the performer, who can make 
us laugh or cry at will. These great art- 
ists are magicians but the magical power 
which they seem to express so easily, so 
gracefully, is the result of years of tireless 
practice day in and day out. This alone 
brought them to the position they now oc- 
cupy. Is it not also truly magical in ef- 
fect, the power which enables the painter 
to bring forth from the white, flat can- 
vas a picture which is so true to nature 
that it delights the eye; or the sculptor, 
who, from a solid block of marble, brings 
forth a human form in all its symmetrical 
beauty? Then too, the writer, whose 
book unfolds before you the history of 

[81| 



past periods, the wisdom of the ages, the 
beauty of poem and romance. These peo- 
ple are all magicians, as are the scientists, 
the discoverers, the inventors. These are 
the souls that are supporting humanity, 
lifting, guiding and saving them; and 
every time we find that work is the key of 
their success and power. The idle man 
can never become a magician. The first 
thing to do is to believe in yourself, in 
your power; then act. Practice is the 
secret of gaining great ends. 

In order to develop these magical forces 
the most important and essential things 
are Faith, Imagination, Will and Enthusi- 
asm. Tolstoy said * 'Faith is the force of 
life." True faith rests on spiritual knowl- 
edge, and without that kind of knowledge 
there can be no faith. A man without 
faith — faith in himself, faith in mankind 
and faith in God — lacks the soul-inspiring 
element of life. 

The imagination is another important 
factor. Indeed we might say that a strong 
faith and a powerful imagination are the 
two pillars supporting the door to the tern- 

[82] 



pie of Magic. The influence of the imagi- 
nation is great for good or evil according 
to the desire that prompts it ; therefore, it 
should be controlled and directed into 
proper channels. Magic is the use of the 
will in guiding and controlling the exter- 
nal forces of nature, and is, as its name 
implies, the great science. The power of 
the will is the highest force man is en- 
dowed with, for it gives him the energy to 
bring into external being the ideals of his 
consciousness. There are many dreamers 
in the world whose thoughts are remark- 
able, but most of them lack the will power 
necessary to make the effort in order to 
bring into a state of reality their dreams. 
Dreams are indeed the seeds from which 
have sprung all great and wonderful 
things. But the vivid imagination which 
creates them must be combined with a 
strong will to make them germinate and 
grow. 

These great faculties, however, are 
lacking until enthusiasm combines them. 
Enthusiasm is defined as M Intense or rap- 
turous feelings felt or displayed, whether 

[83] 



habitually or in a particular case, by indi- 
viduals or by masses, especially as exhibit- 
ed in ardent zeal over a person, principle 
or cause/' Enthusiasm is made up of two 
Greek words — "En," meaning "In" and 
"Theos," meaning "GOD." Those wha 
live and work in enthusiasm do live "In 
God" and God lives in them. For enthu- 
siasm is the expression of the divine in 
man. We have only to think of the won- 
derful enthusiasm of a mother with her 
child, to perceive a force greater than all 
other forces combined to push humanity 
slowly upward. 

Age is not a matter of years, it is a con- 
dition of mind. Youth is enthusiasm, 
and if a man be a hundred and is still cap- 
able of feeling enthusiasm he is young, 
not only is he young but he is useful. 

The real ghosts that haunt this planet 
are mortals without enthusiasm, for, as 
Buddha stated "Those who are in earnest 
do not die, those who are thoughtless are 
as if dead already." There are some men 
who drag themselves along at thirty who 
are dead; their enthusiasm oozed away, 

[84] 



while there are other men at eighty, who 
are thrilled with sublime life, and who 
give the world great books, divine melo- 
dies, and useful inventions, as well as be- 
ing useful members of society in other re- 
spects. Man must laugh at age if he 
would be a magician, he must realize that 
he makes himself as old as he wills. We 
would therefore say unto man that enthu- 
siasm is the great spring of eternal life, 
life that is progressive, life that is creative, 
and to drink of its waters constantly and 
freely, that his innermost nature may re- 
spond to this divine elixir, and become in- 
spired not only to live but to do, not only 
to dream, but to create. 

Would you, O man, become a magi- 
cian? Would you bring a great power 
and light into your life? Then go into the 
silence and communicate with self — self 
the great Sphinx of life — for when all 
problems are solved, there ever remains 
the riddle of self. It is the greatest, the 
deepest of all mysteries that ever has or 
ever will hold the attention of man. Be- 
come acquainted with this wondrous be- 

[85] 



ing within you, and listen to its voice, then 
stir up the smothering coals of enthusiasm, 
feel your self burn with its mighty force, 
and strength divine will be yours, the 
power to see, the courage to dare, and the 
patience to succeed. 



[86] 



THE HIGHER LIFE. 

As we scan the pages of the world's 
history, we find that man has continually 
been pushing his way upward through the 
darkness of ignorance and superstition 
to the light of truth and knowledge. There 
never was a time that man did not feel 
something of the spiritual nature stirring 
within him. It was this yearning, this 
spiritual craving, that prompted man to 
form his religious beliefs, and, to the best 
of his ability, express in outer form some- 
thing of this inner desire. Crude and bar- 
baric as were his first conceptions of the 
universe, and God, they were a step in 
the right direction, and the passing of the 
centuries has led him upward on the 
march of progress towards a fuller, and 
more divine, conception of true religion. 
The higher man has evolved, the better 
able he has grown to distinguish between 
letter and spirit, between the parable and 
its meaning. In the dogmatic state he is 
like a little child, being nursed on fairy 
tales, and parables ; but in the state of ad- 

[87] 



vanced manhood he sees things as they 
are, and has a clearer and more compre- 
hensive conception of truth. 

Deep down in every human heart is the 
seed of a diviner life, which only needs 
the quickening influence of right condi- 
tions to germinate. As the acorn holds 
the germ of the oak within its heart, the 
seed, the possibility of the flower, man 
has, centralized within him, divine power, 
which, when developed and unfolded, il- 
luminates his life with a grandeur eternal. 

The higher life may be characterized as 
the life which is swayed by principle 
rather than impulses, and which bears 
testimony to the reality of the supreme 
ideals. It includes not only such virtues 
as personal purity, truthfulness, and a 
forgiving spirit toward enemies, but also 
embraces an obligation in general toward 
society. In the efforts of human life to 
attain a condition superior to the one it 
at present occupies, the plan of structure, 
whether it is in the realm of mental un- 
foldment, or in the spiritual development, 
must be a mental unfoldment of the plan, 

[88] 



which is termed the ideal, held up before 
the vision presented as a model to copy 
after. To realize the higher life an ideal 
is of utmost importance, as it serves as a 
goal toward which to concentrate our 
forces. It is like a port toward which we 
resolve to steer. Pity the man who drags 
through life without any inspiring ideal. 
No bright vision to lure him onward and 
refresh his soul with the elixir of victori- 
ous life. 

The power of the conscience is great in 
moulding the life of man. It is the still 
small voice of the conscience, which is 
the awakening soul, that purges the body 
of sin and the spirit from earthly dross. 
It is that which treasures not the corrupt, 
delusive wealth of earth, but gathers the 
fruits which spring from the pure life, and 
treasures the gems of heaven. He who 
is deaf to the higher self is poor, indeed, 
no matter what amount of power he may 
have in worldly affairs; but to him who 
through silent prayer uncovers the higher 
self and obeys its promptings, is given a 
power the world knows not. 

[89] 



The real life of the spirit can be led 
right here and now in the every-day con- 
ditions of our life. It is not necessary 
to seclude ourselves from the world, as the 
hermit or the monk, to find God or live 
the higher life; for it is to be found, and 
realized in its greatest glory, right where 
the temptations are the strongest, in the 
world of affairs. On the way to the high- 
est good man must take his fellow man 
with him, not isolate himself. The one 
who selfishly retires from all active life, 
thinking by so doing he will realize the 
spirit, will realize naught but the result 
of his selfishness. For no one can really 
live the higher life without wishing to 
promote it in others as well as in himself, 
and sharing with others the blessings that 
come unto him. For the law is, give and 
you will receive, bless and you will be 
blessed, love and you will be loved. We 
grow and develop in proportion as we 
help others to grow and develop. Now 
what shall we regard as the spiritual man, 
one who has attained the higher life? To 
start with, he must be in perfect physical 

[90] 



condition, that the body may truly and 
harmoniously serve as an instrument of 
the soul. He must have a finely devel- 
oped brain, a spiritualized intellect, so that 
he may unlock all the doorways to the 
truth of things. His influence upon his 
fellowman must be uplifting and enno- 
bling; the effect of his personality upon 
his wife and children and friends must be 
to inspire them all with a higher ideal of 
life and living. A man having all these 
lovable qualities, spiritually adjusted, rec- 
ognizes himself as a child of God, and, 
seeking to come into more intimate rela- 
tionship with God, has reached the ideal 
state beyond which we, at present, can 
conceive of nothing higher. 

A great poet has said, "Self -reverence, 
self-knowledge, self-control; these alone 
lead to sovereign power;" and it is most 
true. Self-reverence depends upon self- 
knowledge, and it leads to self-control, 
and these are the elements of the only 
true greatness of mankind. In every man 
who aspires to spiritual growth there 
is a continual struggle, a battle of life, 

[91] 



a war without banner, or trumpet or 
sound. This is the pilgrimage of the 
world, the combat between earth and 
spirit; and only he accomplishes a glori- 
ous victory who conquers himself. Then 
only does his soul find peace among the 
flowers of the spirit that bloom in 
the silent calm, which follows the 
storm; then, and not until then, 
does he catch a glimpse of the golden 
wings of spirit, or hear the melodious 
music of the spheres flowing out from the 
mansion of the blessed. Now, in order 
to grow into higher manhood it is desira- 
ble to have strong emotions provided one 
has also, at the same time, sufficient will 
power to control them. A person devoid 
of emotion is without virtue and without 
vice; he is without energy, a shadow, 
neither cold nor warm, and is neither ca- 
pable of sinking to any great depth, or 
rising to any sublime height. For the 
saying that the greatest devil holds with- 
in him the possibilities of the greatest 
saint is indeed true. The devil needs a 
true education, and his misdirected en- 

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ergy will be transmuted into higher chan- 
nels, and be productive of good instead of 
evil. 

The one great evil in this world, the cen- 
tral cause of lesser evils, is ignorance, 
man's greatest enemy, and his only devil, 
within whose claws man is held down in 
the mire of materialism, sin and disease. 
We hear much of the power of knowl- 
edge, but little is said of the mighty power 
of ignorance. Its destructiveness is so 
great that within a day it can destroy and 
ruin that which required knowledge cen- 
turies to build. It is like a blood-thirsty 
anarchist, and while it is at large no one 
is safe. All sorrow, suffering, pain said 
sin are traceable to it, and from it there 
is only one salvation — applied knowledge. 

Man is at first ignorant — of necessity — 
he could not suddenly be wise; because 
what we mean by wisdom, by knowledge, 
is the summed up result of human experi- 
ence, to be obtained in no other way. 
There is no royal road to knowledge, no 
quick and easy path by which the divine 
essence of wisdom may be gained, but 

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oaly on the great highway of human expe- 
rience can it be sought and realized. Wis- 
dom, the result of experience and thought, 
crowns one who works towards the most 
sublime ends imaginable, and yet realizing 
the limitations of existing conditions, is 
patient and persistent in his effort to at- 
tain the highest. We have examples of 
men who, overcharged with enthusiasm, 
and lacking in reason, have tried to sud- 
denly reform the world, and we know the 
results. Growth is necessarily slow, ail 
great things have evolved slowly from the 
small to the great. Wisdom teaches us 
that it is possible to live the higher life, 
even now, and from day to day grow in 
strength and nobility. 

The Alchemists of old sought to trans- 
mute the baser metals into gold. In the 
same way we may today practice the spir- 
itual science of unfolding our ideals, by 
transmuting the baser parts of our nature 
into the pure gold of spiritual understand- 
ing. This can be done by the use of will, 
concentration and aspiration guided by 
intelligent thought. Among the essential 

[9*3 



things there is one, without which the 
others lose their value, and that is Love. 
We have grown to that stage where we 
now recognize God as Love. Love is a 
wonderful magical power which trans- 
forms whatever it touches. For the great 
work is the creation of man by himself, 
the unfolding and developing of the di- 
vine that is within him, that it may be- 
come manifest, and by its beauty, strength 
and influence give an added glory unto all 
the earth, a greater representative of the 
heavens. Man is his own devil, man is 
his own God, the creator of his heaven, 
the builder of his hell. Man is the archi- 
tect of his destiny, the master of his fate, 
the captain of his soul as it marches 
through life. Spiritualism, by its great 
truths, and consoling teachings, has done 
much toward making the higher life pos- 
sible. What spirit communion has done 
with its facts and philosophies has been 
done more rationally and satisfactorily 
than all previous revelations ever given. 
It has swept the fire and brimstone out of 
hell, wrath out of the bosom of God, and 

[95] 



fear out of the mind of man. Surely 
when we Spiritualists realize the 
many blessings we have received from 
this sublime cause, we should have little 
difficulty in so living as to give it a noble 
representation on earth, helping it with 
our strongest effort, aiding it in every 
way that it may quickly reach the place 
it is destined to occupy as the religion of 
the world. So to sum up in a few words, 
we would say that the life of love, the life 
of truth, the life of service, is the higher 
life, and wisdom reveals unto us the sub- 
lime truth, that we are all to realize this 
divine state sooner or later. We are all 
to be touched by the hand of the Master, 
and we are to unfold and blossom forth 
as do the buds of spring, under the woo- 
ing heat and light of the sun. The rays 
of the great spiritual sun are upon us, and 
its splendor is driving away the shadows 
of the long, dark night of materialism, for 
a new day is dawning, in which there shall 
be no night, but light, everlasting and eter- 
nal. 



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